"OMG...I'm In The WRONG Business!"

When a text addicted millennial became one of my assistants, I got a lesson in what a Sugar Baby side hustle was.

***This story contains some language and imagery that may be offensive to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.***

My husband and I had relocated back to Baltimore, Maryland in the Spring of 2012. That meant I had to basically rebuild my Personal Chef business all over again from scratch. Before I left, I sold all my North Carolina clients to a very capable Chef, giving him the chance to have a very successful business out of the gate. Lucky him. Over the next three years, I had rebuilt my client base in Baltimore and then some. I had a waiting list of clients and had hired a couple of line cooks to help me out with all the growth in my business. We were able to cook for three households a day, a huge feat I would never dream possible.

I had thought about the idea of doing exactly what the original Personal Chef- the one who wanted to hire me¹ as one of her chefs- had done to grow her business. Basically, farming out chefs to my long waiting list of clients. I already had two chefs that were interested in the idea and decided to run an ad in search of a few more.

The first person who responded was a young 20-something who had studied culinary in another state and was excited to join the team. Her name was Heidi. She had a sweet smile and fiery red hair and when we met up for the interview at a local cafe she showed up in her chef whites, which for some reason impressed me. If her culinary skills were as smart as she looked, I could picture her cooking in a client’s kitchen right from the start. The Interview went well and I felt she was truly engaged and excited to start her culinary journey in the Personal Chef world. I decided to have her stage² for a couple of days so I could access her skill level.

While at the first client’s house, she was very quiet, keeping her head down and focused, and was attentive to what we were doing. She took direction really well and seemed on top of her game. When we were done, we loaded up my car and headed to the next house. While we were driving there, I noticed she was on her phone, texting away furiously. We didn’t really talk on the ride at all, which I was thankful for as I was going over the next cook in my mind. When we arrived at house number two, a sprawling McMansion owned by a power couple who both worked from home, we loaded the groceries into the kitchen and began organizing the cook. The kitchen was state-of-the-art with a large 8 burner Wolfe Stove and two massive commercial kitchen style fridge and freezers. I asked Heidi if she could grab the milk out of the fridge and she looked around as she asked where the fridge was. I said, “Right behind you”, to which, when she opened the door yelling so loudly, “OH MY GOD! LOOK AT THIS THING!” The husband, an extremely nervous man, who also had an office right down the hall from the kitchen, yelled back to us in a panic , “IS EVERYTHING OK?!” I immediately assured him everything was fine, that Heidi had never seen such a beautiful refrigerator before. “Oh, Ok…you scared the HECK outta me!”, he chirped. I saddled up next to Heidi and whispered, “Please don’t do that again.” She replied with a blank stare and said “What?”. I told her that yelling like that or commenting on ANYTHING in a client’s home while IN the house was not cool. Even if they weren’t home, they might have cameras and be listening in or even watching. (This was a regular occurance I experienced with clients of a certain income level)

We went back to cooking and knocked it out fairly quick. I decided that she was definitely proficient and asked her to come work for me, starting the following Monday. She seemed excited and said she’d meet me at my house Monday morning at 7am.

The following Monday, we had a cook at a bachelor’s home. We arrived at Troy’s, a sweet guy who worked in an office. He wasn’t wealthy by any means, but could afford my service. His kitchen was in a modest row home, just big enough for the two of us to work semi-comfortably. When we had unloaded the groceries onto the kitchen island, I started to notice that Heidi had her phone out on the counter next to her. She kept looking back over to it frequently. I got her started on the blueberry muffins, a special treat for Troy. He had requested a grab and go breakfast. I handed her the recipe and all the ingredients. She got started right away, but then started texting back with whoever was on the other end. I assumed she was dealing with something urgent. In my mind, I would NEVER be on my phone on my first day of work especially while cooking. About 20 minutes had passed after she had placed the muffin pan in the oven. I began smelling something burning. I opened the oven and the muffins had exploded over the sides of the pan, dripping onto the bottom of the oven. I immediately yelled for Heidi to turn off the oven. Then I tried to get the runny mess out of the oven and onto the counter. I asked her what happened and she gave me an unconcerned, “I dunno.” I asked her to look over the recipe and tell me what she thought might have gone wrong. She looked it over and said, “I might have added too much baking powder?” I asked her why she would have done that. I got another , “I dunno…”

After I had her start that task over again, I saw she was back to looking at her phone. I asked her if everything was OK. She replied back with a glum, “I’m in the WRONG business.” I looked at her with a furrowed brow and said, “What? What does that mean?” She said, while looking at her phone again, “Well, my roommate is on Sugar Babies and she’s going to make $3,000 tonight. And here I am, making muffins.” First, I have to say, I was shocked and took offense that she was putting down what I considered a great business, MY business. Secondly, I was like, “What the hell is a Sugar Baby?!”

She then explained that Sugar Babies was an app where one creates an account to get (usually) older people, both men and women, but mainly men, to buy you things. You could ask for them to pay your rent or buy you a car or pay for college or buy you clothes…whatever you want. But…you had to do things for them to get your desired monetary object/goal/etc.

“So, what’s your friend’s goals and HOW is she getting paid $3,000 in a night?!”, I quickly asked, feeling like I knew the HOW part already.

“She wants someone to help pay her rent. This old British dude is supposed to take her out to dinner tonight in a fancy restaurant downtown to interview her”, she said.

I asked, “Wait. She’s getting paid $3000 plus dinner to get interviewed by a British guy?! That sounds sketchy.”

“No, really, the guy said he’s looking for a pretty redhead to accompany him to some rich dude event next week. So, I guess, if she plays the part right she’ll get the whole $3000”, Heidi said while chopping broccoli.

“Wait, hang on a sec…She has to “audition” to be an escort? What does that entail?”, I asked while I whisked a bechamel sauce on the stove.

“Oh, I don’t know..I guess carry herself a certain way? What to talk about? Anyway, she’s got this date setup tonight”, she replied.

We both continued on with the cook at hand, with me wondering if this girl was putting herself In danger. After about an hour, I noticed Heidi feverishly texting again. “Hey Heidi, could you please focus on what we are doing here? I want to get to the next client’s house as soon as possible.”

“Oh, hey, sorry…It’s my roommate again. She’s saying that the dude asked if she had another red headed friend to tag along and that he would pay us $5000 for the night!”, she said excitedly.

I replied, “OK..listen…this guy sounds like a total creep. No one asks to have two girls on their arms at a fancy business event…that would look weird, unless you’re Hugh Hefner. Please tell your friend that I doubt that she’s going to get paid anything and that he’s probably full of shit. He’s probably not even British!”

“Oh, no, he’s definitely a Brit… And he has good credentials she said. I’m going to consider it…” she said as she shredded some roasted chicken.

Just then, Heidi read another text and started texting back furiously again. “Ha! He wants to see a picture of me!", she exclaimed.

“Dude, this sounds too good to be true. As an older woman, I have to be honest…I’ve got all sorts of bells and whistles going off on my bullshit detector about this situation. I’m telling you, this guy isn’t who he claims to be and you should both be careful”, I implored her.

“Yeah, well, I probably won’t go because I have to meet you so early tomorrow morning…”

I was happy she had considered that, and hoped that neither of them would go to this so called “interview”.

The next morning, Heidi showed up on time and we drove to the grocery store. We went to the first house, a beautiful home in the county, that was built in a 1950’s mid-century modern style. The clients, two school teachers, weren’t home. We started unpacking all the groceries and I asked her what she did the night before.

“Oh, I stayed home. Read a book” , she sleepily replied. I couldn’t help but ask her how her roommate’s evening went.

She casually quipped, “Oh, you know, with a 50 year old Brit’s dick in her mouth.”

I was floored by her lack of feeling and the blasé way she answered. “WHAT?!! How did THAT happen?!!”

Heidi then told me that she had met him at The Prime Rib, a very upscale restaurant in Baltimore. They had dinner- “She of course ordered the Lobster!” - and then he asked her to go to his hotel with him so that he could “show her the suit he had brought for the event that had been “custom tailored” at Mullen & Mullen, a luxury men’s clothier in London.” Once she was in his room, he got straight away to business and asked for a blow job. He said he needed to make sure she could “finish the evening properly” and to thank him for the wonderful experience she was going to have. After she was finished the blowjob, he told her he would get back to her by morning, to let her know if she passed the audition.

“Let me tell you something Heidi…Number one: That man is NOT from England. Number two: there was no “event”, ever. And Number three: She’s not getting a dime, other than that lobster dinner, either”, I firmly stated. Heidi didn’t look at me for quite a while after I said all that. We had finally gotten through the cook when Heidi got another text.

“Yeah, you were probably right”, she blandly said. “Looks like she didn’t pass the audition. The jerk never even paid her anything!”

“Well, to me, that sight sounds like a predator’s dream… set up a fake account, say you’ll pay someone for nothing, then get free blowjobs or more!”, I said. “I mean, if you want to give sexual favors for money, then call it like it is. Basically, prostitution or being a sex worker. And listen, no judgement here, but you have to know, going into it, that it might be just that. Just basic prostitution.”

Heidi looked at me and laughed saying, “Well, what YOU DO is prostitution!”

Stunned, I turned to her and said, “What?! What I do is NOT prostitution AT ALL. I offer a non-sexual service. I cook for a living. There’s a big difference.“ I quickly stopped myself from pushing the button on the food processor with the Lemon Coconut Dhal Dip I was making for Troy. “Seriously, THAT’S NOT the same Heidi.”

All she replied with was a curt, “WHATEVER” in true twenty-something style. We finished the day’s cooks, mostly listening to music and not talking, each in our own heads.

Heidi cooked one more time for me, and then emailed me two days later saying she had found other work. I certainly hope it wasn’t a gig on Sugar Babies.

Until next week, Thanks so much for following along on this journey! If you enjoy Secrets and Spice please make sure you subscribe to get each weeks story emailed directly to you. Also, if you would like access to any of my recipes please consider a paid subscription. It’s one of the perks of becoming a paid supporter. (it’s only $5 a month or $50 for the year)

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Thank you again,

- Shirlé

**All names, places and occupations have been changed to protect the identity of all clients.

Please leave a comment or two…I’d love to hear from you!

A Shout Out to this Weeks Paid Supporters:

A very special shout out to the following paid subscribers:

Robinlee Garber, Chef Lynn Warlick Wells, Jake Brokaw, Miyuki Furtado and Spanky Wilson. A special shout out to new paid subscribers Lisa Deemer Sethi and Claudia L Sanders! Thank you all soooo much for your support!

-Robinlee is a childhood friend and all around renaissance woman, living and playing music in Chicago.

-Chef Lynn is a fellow Personal Chef buddy and owner of Thyme Well Spent, Personal Chef Service, based out of Greensboro NC. When not cooking for clients or food styling for cookbooks, she can be found hobnobbing with tastemakers and culinary shakers all over the country.

-Jake and his wife Brigitte have long been huge supporters of my cooking and are also huge supporters of the arts in Baltimore, Maryland. Jake also has an Orthopedic practice I have had to use a few times.

-Miyuki has been a lifelong friend and bandmate of mine from days long past. He’s also one of the best fathers and husbands I know and has raised one of the coolest kids, his daughter Mino along with his sweet wife Tricia. Miyuki currently plays music in his Alt-Country band, Divining Rod. You can listen to Divining Rod out on all music platforms. (Chef Lynn, I think you would LOVE his music!)

-Spanky has been a huge supporter of my cooking from my NC days. When not fire fighting you might find Spanky hiking the Appalachian trail.

-Lisa has been in my life since the early 90’s. She’s a huge music supporter and a lover of all things delicious.

-Claudia is an old friend from my days in North Carolina. I met Claudia at a pig pull back in 1998, when I first moved to Chapel Hill. Since then, Claudia has started a successful Personal Chef business, Good Intentions Personal Chef Service in the Hillsborough area, as well as serving the Durham and Chapel Hill area.

Thank you all sooo much for supporting me in this endeavor. I am truly grateful for you.

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1. See What I Really Wanted To Be Was A Rockstar to read about that experience.

2. To see what that word means: To Stage, pronounced stazhjer.